


Flowers for Tony

by JointExisting



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Flowers, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Language of Flowers, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Not everyone is alive, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Endgame, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony stark is a gardener, not beta read we fall like thor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23165302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JointExisting/pseuds/JointExisting
Summary: Tony Stark has a garden. It is his place, his space, and his escape.In it, he grows what he's come to find he cannot express. As such, it is private.That 'Tony Stark is a gardener' AU no one asked for.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark
Kudos: 10





	1. Marigolds for Grief . Tony

**Author's Note:**

> **Edited + re-envisioned: 25/03/2020.**  
>  The _Tony Stark is a gardener_ AU no one asked for.

He grew marigolds for grief.

The flower was almost overwhelming with how it spread, fast and thick through the beds, on a seemingly endless tirade of new growth and colour. Tony spent each day – or, at least, every other day – finding a new bud, or an entire new flower coming into bloom. They’d taken a curious place in his heart with the fire of their oranges, the passions of their reds and their sunny yellows. Ignoring them, he’d discovered, was entirely too difficult for they, like his demons, demanded a certain level of attention, even though they smelled less than desirable - much like his demons, he might add. They, the marigolds, were incredibly constant, always in the background—the ones he planted in February grew until October if the frosts weren’t too bad.

Really, he should have known better than to think they wouldn’t fester in his garden as grief did in his mind.

Tony crouched down to examine a leaf, running his worked hands over the greenery until he could find the peace he sought. He only had a few minutes until someone came looking, as they always did these days, and frankly he was starting to notice how sick he was of not getting out into the garden. Not just because of the appointments he should keep, but the land was beginning all too quickly to have that look of wildness he wasn’t going for this year.

Finding wilful strength, Tony pushed himself up and grabbed the watering can to drench the undergrowth. Without a hat, he could feel the vibrant warmth of the sun bearing down on his skin; the pasty white from too much lab time would soon be bronzed by late afternoons spent sneaking off to crumble dirt at his fingers, to transfer potted daisies into the earth, and collecting summer-ripened tomatoes he wouldn’t share. The fragments of metal beneath his nails would sooner be brown muck, and he couldn’t be happier at the swap.

Of course, he’d deny it. He would. If too many people knew about this – his garden, cared and nurtured since first working it into the re-redesign of the Avengers Head Quarters upstate – it would soon be _everyone’s_ place, and not just Tony’s. He needed his garden to stay his; his space, his escape.

Propping his watering can on a nearby rock, Tony used his hand to fan his face and then wiped the sweat off his forehead, a drop slipping off his nose and on to the oil-smeared AC/DC t-shirt. He turned into the shade of the tree FRIDAY was keeping the height of the force field – just, but it was their reality; no one would question a random leaf in the middle of the sky – and settled on to the bench, lifting his eyes to the blue horizon across from him; a couple of clouds were spinning webs of themselves across New York State, and he briefly considered if it might rain.

_Nah_. Tony manhandled a pair of old sunglasses from his pocket, leaving a dirty fingerprint in the corner as he pushed them up his nose. Although darker, his garden was still just as vibrant; the sunglasses brought out different colours, different alignments between the stalks, stems and the more discerning flowers, not quite as easily noticed in the outburst of snapdragons, hollyhocks and cornflowers.

He breathed in the good air and let it out a moment later, reaching down to pick up the water bottle he’d chucked on the grass earlier as he’d gone straight to pulling up a patch notorious for random weed explosions. Tony uncapped it and took a long drink, relishing in the taste of the water as he drank it down in long gulps which, he realised with a coy smirk and a chuckle, would have Rhodey gagging in coarse laughter.

Expectedly, Tony’s eye drew back to the marigolds.

His shoulders slumped down and he raised a hand to massage his neck, the tension headache finally breaking as he let the past day unravel and, finally, he could push past the latest fight, the newest stupidity. It rolled over him in waves of fought-back shame, of needling contempt as he stood up from the bench with a groan and sauntered over to prune back an adventurous rose he’d thought wouldn’t make it; the scarlet flowers were heavy on the stems, withered slightly in the heat, and he raised a callused finger to drag over a throne. It stung a little, the prick, and he huffed at the memory it evoked from those years ago – a memory which didn’t matter at present.

Tony sighed, the sadness clinging to his thoughts as he crouched to the lupines and the love-in-a-mists, tending to a few seed-pods he tore off and stored in a pocket, ready to be carefully placed in small brown envelopes.

As he wiped a few cobwebs away from between out-reaching stems, his eye caught on something bright-

There, amongst his blue-grey flowers, was a striking marigold.

It wasn’t all that leafy; it had probably seven—no, eleven flowers—a bit of a feat for a bed so crowded-over with shielding leaves. Tony reached out to deadhead one stem, emptying the seeds on to his right palm. He drew his finger over them – their smell intensified – and pressed, but they didn’t give much; they looked viable.

Tony shifted his head to the sky and squinted at the sunlight, even with his sunglasses on. Clenching the seeds of grief in one hand, he walked away from the plant surviving where it shouldn’t—where it had no right being, there amongst his roses and their love, his lupines and their happiness, and his perplexed love-in-a-mist with their spidery stems. He managed the stroll to the other side of the garden, feeling a breeze begin to pick up, and got down on to his knees to sink the fingers of his left hand into the soil—life vibrated from it, like it did engines. The engines of the earth, the soil, a constant ebb in the background of their lives.

He made a couple of holes just deep enough and carefully shifted a few seeds into each, before piling loose earth on top of them. A riptide pulled at his heart as he buried them, buried the grief-bearing flowers which would, in the pressured sunshine and the warmth of the ground, be up no later than Sunday – two days from now. Tony knew that from experience, how quickly marigolds and grief tended to grow when given the right conditions to thrive.

Dousing the ground with water, Tony took a step back and looked down at where nothing had been, but soon the ground would tear and split, green buds would sprout and grow and grow until they flowered—and they would wither, like so much else, but leave behind the seeds of the next generation, next season’s growth. They would drop their seeds, some at least would, because honestly Tony couldn’t collect them all; they would settle in the earth for next year, and grow again, and again, and he couldn’t get away from them, not now. Not when he actively encouraged them.

He was only human.

Off came the sunglasses as he retook his seat on the bench and stared at his garden – at the flowers, the plants, the small greenhouse where he was conducting a limited experiment with watermelons – and sitting beneath the tree he let his head fall back against the rough bark, curling and uncurling his fists as he shut his eyes and listened to nature around him, to his emotions pulse through him and-

“Boss?” FRIDAY’s voice interrupted him and he sat bolt upright, blinking a few times to rid the wetness from his eyes.

“Uh—yes?” he asked his AI, clearing his throat, taking another few gulps of water and wiping his mouth. “Yes, FRIDAY?”

“Boss.” She at least sounded apologetic, soft like Pepper had been in the mornings; he tensed at the memory. “Steve is looking for you, and Peter will be here very soon. Dr Banner is requesting to know your location.”

Tony ran a hand down his face; belatedly realising he’d smeared damp earth all over his nose and mouth. He spit a few earthly crumbles from his tongue and bit back the exhaustion taxing his every limb. “Tell them I’m...” He hadn’t meant to trail off, raising his eyes to look at the horizon—past everything else, beyond the nearest comfort and to the uncertain future. His body sagged, although whether it was in relief or the more complicated emotions he ignored, he wasn’t sure.

Clenching a fist, he told FRIDAY, “Tell them I’m coming.” Tony turned a last glance on his garden, on the vibrancy, the cascade of smells, the rush of nature’s ambience—and how it surrounded him, and how it was lacking everywhere else; in his life, in his love, his relationships, his friends and their lives and the blasted Tower and his labs.

Chasing the last few gasps of something, anything to part from the garden and to take with him—something describable, something tangible, something unquestionably a part of who everyone knew he was. The flash and the clash, the overwhelming, the something he would always know.

“Boss?”

“Coming, FRIDAY,” Tony muttered, and his stare fixed on what it always did—on what it had done for years, since first planting the pesky things, since seeing them in the fields, on the graves around courtyards. They practically screamed ‘Take me to Church, lay me between the pages of a blessed Bible and scorch the wilted petals next Sunday’.

He bent to snap a few marigolds from their larger flowers, automatically comparing stem length as he counted a bunch of nine. Tony grabbed up his water bottle and, with his grief collected, left his garden for another day.


	2. Daffodils for New Beginnings . Tony & Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve Rogers was in his garden.
> 
> That wasn't meant to happen.

This wasn’t meant to happen.

This should have _never_ happened.

Tony stood in the doorway, squinting out into his still garden; the colours were moving gracefully towards summer’s bloom, lighting up with sunflowers which would soon hang large and heavy. A bird was attacking the cornflowers in the sunniest corner of the garden, happily perched as it nibbled up seeds—usually, Tony would be flattered at seeing it, quietly aware the bird was feeding on his plants and living another day, but his attention wasn’t on the bird as it hopped over the bent stems.

Steve Rogers was in his garden.

The Captain’s broad shoulders were hunched forwards, his head bowed into his sketchbook; he wasn’t sitting in the red sunlight of the afternoon but was on the grass, with his legs sprawled out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He had his paints, two jars of water, a set of pencils Tony himself had gifted him some years ago before everything happened.

Slowly, Tony opened the door and stepped on to the path, flicking his eyes down to the large footprints which had disrupted his carefully-laid stones and trodden them into the dirt. He stepped into them, walked through them, made little noise. Steve didn’t even glance up from his sketchbook, reaching automatically for a different pencil, so far seemingly ignoring his paints.

Tony inhaled and let his eyes flutter closed, clenching a fist. He let it uncurl, stretched his fingers, and swallowed back any hint of uncertainty. “Hey, Capsicle. You’re in my spot.”

Steve jolted up and out of his reverie, tearing out his earbuds in the process. He turned on the spot, his sketchbook’s long lengths of flowers and stems nearly ready to be penned. It fell out of his lap on to the grass, missing the paints and the water jars by a couple of inches. “Tony,” Steve said in that breathy way, that sort of _hey, you surprised me and I’m not sure how I feel about that_ way.

Tony was used to that, at least. He raised an eyebrow, keeping a blank expression toward the Captain. One large and gentle hand pressed into the grass beneath him, the greenery seeming almost to be growing over him; it was an appealing image. “Uh, yeah, hi. What’re you doing here?” Tony tapped his fingers against his outer thigh, hoping to seem more impatient than insecure, but it was a delicate balance he was finding abnormally difficult these days.

Because, and it was one thought out of millions, this was _his_ place. This garden was Tony’s expression, was his memory, his ability to think without getting lost in the detail anymore. This was where, if he were to let anyone spend any time, they’d find his soul bared to the universe and Her judgement.

Steve’s blue eyes flit from Tony to the tree, to the ground, to his sketchpad and the flowers and, finally, back to Tony. They stared at one another, and it was uncertain who was and who wasn’t breathing. Finally, Tony broke the silence again; he wasn’t about to start waiting for someone else. “Either you reply, or you get out.”

“Is this your garden, Tony?” Steve asked, an eyebrow jolting up.

Tony bit the inside of his cheek, disbelief at himself for the harsh possessive tone in his voice. “It might be. It certainly isn’t yours—especially considering to get here you’ve gotta go right through my private quarters, and I don’t remember giving you access.” It was Tony’s turn to raise his eyebrow, but he otherwise tried to keep his face blank, to keep his emotions in check while the Captain was still there, still leeching into his place, still leaving his handprints on Tony’s soul.

That was what Steve was good at after all, leaving himself where he wasn’t welcome.

The sitting Captain stayed silent a moment longer, before he said, “I’m sorry, Tony.” Steve grabbed his sketchbook and flipped the pages closed, collecting his pencils. “I came up here looking for you and found the door—I never realised you had a balcony and I got curious.”

“So curious you wandered back to your rooms, grabbed your pens and paints _and then_ came back here?” Tony asked coldly, moving seamlessly past Steve to touch one of his marigolds – he deadheaded it on instinct and stuffed the seed pod in his pocket. Turning back to the Captain, who’d gone quiet at the show of kindness, Tony said, “Some would say you’re trespassing, Steve.”

“Never exactly stopped me before.” Steve hauled himself to his feet, his eyes moving everywhere around the greenery. “It’s nice here.” He broke off in a laugh as he shoved his sketchbook under his arm. “I can see why you don’t share it, Tony.” Putting up his hands, palms out, the Captain lastly added, “I’ll go.” 

Tony kept his arms crossed as Steve passed him with a decided brush of their arms, walking slowly and carefully toward the door. Giving his eyes a rub, Tony let out a groan which, of course, stopped the Captain in his tracks. “What d’you want, Steve?” Tony asked, turning, his shoulders slumping down.

“I don’t want anything,” Steve replied, standing amongst the blooming dahlias. He walked back towards Tony a few steps. “Well, I mean – nothing physical. My room has far too much of your tech anyway.”

Tony’s eyebrows jumped. “Cap, no offence, but when people say _physical_ nowadays, they think of something _real different_.”

“Tony, please.” Steve let out a long, dramatic sigh. If Tony could find it in himself, he would have called him out on it, on the blatant need to bring some Hollywood quality into their conversation—but he didn’t have the strength to fight another war in him. Not now. Not so soon. Steve continued speaking: “I want you to _take care of yourself_.”

Tony audibly snorted, his face breaking into an easy grin; it was the type of smile that just happened. It wasn’t the media one, or one he practiced for the cameras. It was just what his face wanted to do at Steve’s words; so full of true-born heroism. In reality, Tony felt a little sick by them, a little uneasy—unwell. He’d been too obvious, then, how uncomfortable life seemed – despite his garden.

The daffodils – jonquils – had died a few days ago. Tony still hadn’t dealt with them. They lay near Steve, mostly wilted now, and some decomposing with the aid of insects. He tried not to let their sight falter him, but it must have shown in his expression because Steve was turning his head down to look at them. He nudged one stem with his foot.

Tony dismissed the Captain’s presence and went to settle on to the earth beside the bed they were in, reaching out a tentative hand to begin snapping off the flowers. “Tony,” he heard, Steve’s voice nonplussed about the plants, but filled with quiet adoration. It had that fed-up edge to it which Tony preened at, knowing all too well he was responsible for it. It was an achievement in his eyes to have the good captain constantly on the edge of annoyance with him.

A hand settled suddenly on his shoulder, kneading it in all sorts of wrong ways which felt so right. “Tony, please,” Steve repeated, and he placed his paints to one side, his pens too. His pencils were sat carefully atop his closed sketchbook, the cover smudged by artist’s fingers. “Please stop shutting yourself away. It wasn’t your fault.” His fingers undid a tense knot in Tony’s shoulder, as the man himself tidied away the daffodils for another year. "You had to let her go."

Another few moments passed between them, quiet and reaching comfort before Tony’s body sagged forwards and tears ghosted his lashes, pressing through his eyelids to streak down his cheeks. “I—Steve—I just. I just miss her--oh, Pepper.” He gasped in a fractured breath. “It-it’s been _two years_ , Steve – whe-when am I going to be allowed to-to-to start again? To...” He touched the dead flowers. “Begin anew?”

Steve’s arms enveloped him and Tony stiffened. He’d grown used to hugs over the past few years – from Peter and Morgan, mostly – but the Captain had never hugged him. He was heavy—heavier than Tony might have thought he’d be; like a cherry tree branch. He smelled of paints, and of the grass, and Tony drew in a deep breath as he let out the tears he’d not allowed himself to amongst the others; Tony knew he’d grown cold around them, knew he’d shut himself away in a pensive attempt to find himself as un-close to another person as possible.

He couldn’t do that. Not anymore. Not when Peter begged him to talk to him, not when Morgan needed him, not when the Team were giggling like mad school girls and then went quiet when he so much as said something. He’d grown tired, mentally and physically, of everyone walking around him on eggshells.

Tony shoved his face into his hands, inhaling the smell of the earth in his fingers, as Steve pulled away and stood up. A few moments on the ground, lifting his eyes to look at the dead daffodils, and then Tony was making himself stand up, facing the Captain who said, “Sometimes new beginnings take a while, Tony.” Steve’s smile reached his eyes. A few seconds passed between them, and then the Captain was turning around to collect his jars of water; there was a faint murkiness to the one, so he must have been painting some time before Tony arrived.

Taking the jars from Steve, Tony emptied them on to the daffodil plants. As Steve collected his materials again, Tony crouched down once more to survey the plants, pulling out the last few dying stems for the compost. His eye caught suddenly on a bud; tiny though it was, it looked strong. He brushed the backs of his fingers across it, his eyebrows flitting up. Daffodils were one of the first marks on a garden, the first brush of the coming spring and, though most of them were dead now and other spring-bound flowers were coming up, the beginning of the season was obviously still not over.

Tossing a glance up to Steve, Tony momentarily thrown into his shadow, the two of them shared a smile which wasn’t quite a fond smile, which wasn’t wholly an understanding smile—but it was the beginnings of a smile, a new type of smile which promised to Tony he didn’t need to start again. The flowers were already there; they just needed care, love, and time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~oops sorry Pepper *shocked pikachu*~~


	3. Lavender for Silence . Tony & Bucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lavender wanted, badly, to live; Tony could see it, could feel it.

Tony loved lavender, but he'd had never liked _his_ lavender. No matter how much he pruned it, no matter how often he shaped it--it always managed to look as out of control as it possibly could. It was a wonder it still flowered, especially after he decided he wouldn’t even bother watering it anymore; eventually, he concluded, it would die and he could start anew with it.

Much like he’d been trying to do since his conversation with Steve. The Captain had left his artist’s handprints everywhere since that day and Tony wasn’t entirely sure about some of the supposed ‘art’ Steve had quietly installed when Tony’s back was turned; a garden was meant to be a display of flowers; why did he need sculptures?

Nor was Tony a messy gardener; he knew exactly where everything was and needed to be. He did not need Steve popping up with pansies and primroses and trying to put them in the dahlia bed. The Captain was delicate, the way he worked, but he was not so much the way he stepped and walked; already Tony had had to explain the moss in the corner was not just a mess Steve could wander through; it had a purpose. The crushed chamomile at the edge of a corner said just as much and Tony raked a hand down his face with the impatience of the situation.

But the lavender. The lavender wanted, badly, to live; Tony could see it, could feel it. When he ran his hands through it and over it he could smell the fragile fragrance pressing upwards, trying to gain favouritism with their human god.

Tony wandered past a particularly nervous lupine plant and minded his way through the crisp scents of the herbs, trailing closer to the dreaded lavender. Today was the day. He’d decided while snoozing in bed last night he was going to his garden at first light and doing away with the lavender. He had his trowel and shovel and secateurs; he’d recently oiled the clippers for use on something else, but he knew they’d work just as well to trim the beast before he had to get rid of it—after all, it was a useful plant. He’d tidy the good stems and take them in; he’d dry some of them, leave others out for cooking, and pop a few in some old jars to leave about the common area of the Compound.

If anyone asked, he’d offhandedly mutter about a delivery, as he always did; there was a garden centre down the road, where he went if he needed an escape and couldn't get away to his garden without notice. The old couple who owned it gave him frequent glances, as though they were sure they knew him but didn’t want to assume. He always paid in cash. Sometimes, when someone at the Compound got too close to asking Tony about the flowers, he’d mention the garden centre, say they delivered a couple things up as a tribute to the Fallen.

He didn’t like doing it. It just reminded everyone of their grief—but dammit: sometimes Tony didn’t want to be the only one in pain.

He rounded the corner.

The lavender stared him in the face; all odd angles and awkward edges, all bunches and croaked stems. Tony clenched his tools tighter and walked purposefully towards it, gathering his courage to do away with the plant. It wasn’t a new thing, him having to dig up and get rid of unruly plants, but he never thought he’d do it to a lavender bush—it had a smell which greatly reminded him of his Mom; she’d worn some perfume, at the time a clawing scent to young Tony, but one he would come to understand was _hers_.

Suddenly, movement at the edge of the garden caught his eye and he turned his head instinctively towards him, raising a confused eyebrow. Usually, Steve would announce himself to the garden whether Tony was there or not; he had yet to understand it wasn’t meant to be communal, and often asked Tony if anyone else knew about it—Morgan, Peter, maybe. Rhodey? No, was Tony’s answer every time; he shut down the conversation before Steve could get anywhere with it, walking off if the topic so much as strayed to it. Thankfully, though Steve had explored, he had yet to stumble through certain areas and into various eclipsing hives of Tony’s special place; although smaller than what Tony wanted, the garden was a maze of well-hidden conclaves. It was a way for him to keep busy, constructing the branches of his mind through the garden.

Tony knew for certain Steve had yet to find the herb patch. If he had, Tony was sure there’d be nothing left; the man had taken up kitchen responsibilities. His latest attempt had been a lasagna, which was something Tony usually cooked—and something, when he’d had the plate placed in front of him, he’d discarded and left steaming, walking away with a firm and persistent shake to his shoulders. It fell to Peter – wonderful, determined Peter Parker – to bring him the dish, warmed in the oven, and sit chattering nonsense with him in the lab until Tony had finished the plateful.

So, if Steve hadn’t found the herb patch, who had? Who had discovered his garden?—that was definitely not an animal; no birdbath-loving bird would make that much noise, or seemingly be that big. Tony placed down his tools and searched around, taking careful steps in the direction of the intruder. “Hello?” he called, but was returned only the silence of the abound plants. Tony raised his eyes further, searching, and then let out a sombre-leaning breath. “Fine. Fine.” Opening his arms, Tony returned his attention to the plant.

Beside it sat one Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier’s flesh hand was touching the earth beneath the lavender plant, running his fingers between the gangling stems. “Hello, Stark,” he said in a voice far too formal to announce any squalid friendship between them. “When Steve said you had a yard up here, he wasn’t joking.”

Tony tensed and drew his lips into a straight line. “It’s not a _yard_ ,” he said, spittle pooling in his mouth. He swallowed it down, trying not to make his expression one of disgust; he’d forgotten to brush his teeth this morning, and last night. “It’s a garden.”

“Like the English, huh,” Barnes replied immediately, a stretched smile dotting the corners of his mouth. “An English garden—it fits you.”

“Firstly,” Tony began, and saw the chuckle more than heard it, “This is _not_ an English garden. There’s nothing tidy about it, and somehow you’ve managed to find one of the secrets—if this was an English garden, there’d be paths everywhere, connecting everything.

“Secondly.” Tony eyed his lavender bush, which Barnes had taken to stroking, “When the Hell did Steve tell you?”

“The other day. He said he was going to paint, and my Steve isn’t much of a liar; I asked where to find him, and he said your yar—garden, so I connected the dots,” Barnes answered without thinking about it, sitting up. He drew his legs under him, but didn’t stand. “You’ve got to remember Stark, I’m not exactly normal and neither is your thinking pattern; it’s taken me longer, sure, but when you understand the way someone thinks, you’ll be amazed at how easily you can find all their secrets.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “Not sure my plants like your tone, Barnes.”

“I’ve not spoken to them, Stark; I never got the talking to plants thing even as a kid,” said Barnes, his hand stilling on the fragile tendrils of the lavender. “In fact, I've only spoken to you: it didn’t feel right to speak in your place.”

Tony drowned the cruel laughter threatening to spill out from his chapped lips. He turned his head down, only lifting his eyes when he saw Barnes snap a lavender stem. A pulse of anger shot through him and he took a step forward, about to tell him to stop—but it was redundant, considering he was about to take the plant down anyway. “If you want it, take it,” Tony said instead, gesturing at the bedraggled specimen. “I’m cutting it down, anyway.”

“Why?” Barnes asked, alarm filtering through his tone. “It’s perfectly healthy.”

“It’s too much,” responded Tony. He waited a second; clenching and unclenching his fist around his garden scissors, and then sat away from Barnes on the other side of the plant. “I’m not- I’m not going for the wild look this year.”

Barnes blinked at him a few times. “That’s a shame,” he said, his voice quiet and concise. “It... It’s lavender, right?”

“Yep.” Tony leant forwards to begin snipping some of the taller stems from the bottom. The silence penetrated their conversation after that, keeping them within the secure footing of acquaintances and never treading past the line. Tony snipped away at the lavender from the bottom as Barnes snapped the stems higher up. After a few minutes, Tony removed a line of twine from his pocket and cut a few strips. “Have at ye,” Tony huffed, chucking the bits across.

Barnes took his time with awkwardly tying the stems together – six or so to a bunch – setting them carefully to one side. Although still uncomfortable, the tension around them was melding, the pressure settling and dispersing with each second.

Overhead, the sun shone down warmly on Tony’s exposed shoulders, his jacket laid to one side; he was getting to the middle of the plant now, taking down stems and checking for rooting potential; if he didn’t have to buy a new plant, he’d rather not. Cuttings, in his experience, had always generated rather good plants – and a lot of them. He could probably sneak one into the kitchen, a small thing, on a shelf with enough sunlight and a little bowl beneath it to catch any overspills of water.

Barnes was making slower progress, taking his time to feel each bud with his flesh fingers and bring every cutting to his nose. He paused every so often, his eyes slipping closed, breathing in the fragile fragrance; although not as subtle as rosemary tended to be, lavender could go either way for Tony. Sometimes the smell was overpowering, other times it had nearly nothing unless you stuffed your entire face right into the plant. This one, he’d decided, was in a medium; another reason he wanted a cutting to root.

“It’s a nice smell,” hummed Barnes a little over five minutes into their quiet. “It reminds me of the silence.”

“The silence?” Tony asked, raising an eyebrow across the stockier stems he’d come to and was clipping down.

“After,” Barnes replied as though that meant anything. He swallowed thickly. “There was just this silence after, I remember, and it had this really nice smell. I’ve never found it before now.” He took one of the stems. “It’s this. She was wearing this.”

Tony’s heart lurched into his throat, the sudden realisation of what Barnes was referring to hitting him in the gut. He took in a shaking breath, a shiver passing through his spine, and struggled to keep back the bile threatening to come up his throat. The casual tone of the other man’s voice, although sad, haunted him into the rest of his cutting down of the plant, which he did not do quite as well as he’d done the first half. When he arrived at where Barnes had been snapping, the stems looked war-torn and were pungent with the smell of lavender--it was too much. Tears clung to Tony's eyelashes, threatening to spill down his flushed cheeks.

“I think I should go,” Barnes said, his eyes focusing in on Tony’s face before rising to look around the garden again. “I’m sorry I came here without your permission, Stark. I...”

“You should go,” Tony said when Barnes trailed off, though he did not raise his eyes to meet him. “I’d like it if you didn’t tell anyone about this—and for gosh sakes tell Steve to shut up about it, too.”

A quiet, a blip of silence, and then- “I won't tell anyone, Stark. I can understand you wouldn’t want this place trampled on; it’s still quite fragile, no matter how much it's trying not to be.” Barnes picked himself and his twine-tied lavender up, moving smoothly from the herbs and back into the centre of the garden.

Tony listened for the door, and when it shut he allowed the few tears to roll down his cheeks in the silence he was left with; his head, usually a hive of thoughts, was as quiet as the air today and he found himself almost reluctant to take the few lavender stems to the greenhouse in the far corner to root them.

It seemed, momentarily, a silly idea to honour the dead when he did not always honour the living.

###### 

Through the next two weeks, each and every stem of lavender he tried to root ended in the very same way: Dead. How poetic.

Until one day when he arrived in the greenhouse, the wind whistling a song against the windows, and he found four small pots with rooted lavender inside of them ready to be planted out. Tony ghosted his fingers over them, staring at their lush new growth, and thought, _I didn’t plant these_. His last attempt had died three days ago and he’d been waiting for the right time to sneak off to the garden centre down the road.

Tony picked up one of the plants and brought it to his nose; the smell was fresh, but not overpowering, reminiscent of the first week of spring in the subtleties of its scent. He drew it away.

He did the same to the last three, checking them over and inhaling the smell of young plants—and then he saw it; a small piece of folded card attached with sticky tape to the side of one pot. Tony carefully unstuck it, placing down the lavender plant, and opened it. Two words greeted him, nicely written in an old script with great care.

 _For her_.

Tony stared at the words, and then brought the card to his nose and inhaled; it had been doused in clinical lavender perfume—something very like his mother’s, he was sure. His eyes budded with tears and he raised his head to look out into the garden, moving unconsciously toward the doorway, sliding it open and stepping out to look around, to see if there was even the slightest movement amongst his flowers.

But even the wind had stopped whistling to give him a minute of silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Bonus**
>
>> Bucky held the lavender in his flesh hand, sitting with his journal open in front of him. He’d stuck one stem into the margins of his latest entry, which read:
>> 
>> _Today, I sat with Tony Stark in his_ ~~yard~~ _garden and tore apart his grief for his mom stem by stem of lavender._  
>  _Tomorrow, I’m going with Steve to the garden centre to buy some pots (because Stark will notice if I take some of his) and some soil. I don’t know how he’ll take them, if they root, but I don’t know what else I can do. I’ve said sorry. I’ve apologised. I don’t expect him to forgive me, but maybe he’ll forgive the lavender, at least._  
> 


End file.
